The benefit of mobility

One of the many stats in League of Legends is movement speed. This determines how quickly you're able to run across the map, and is a key aspect of the game. In some cases, you'll be able to get back to your tower faster to catch minions that would have otherwise died, and in others, it can be the determining factor in escaping a gank, or securing a kill.

Let's have a look at some of the different abilities and items in LoL that affect your or your opponent's movement speed.

 

Tailwind: Increases the movement speed of all allied champions by 3%.

This is Janna's passive, and is available from level one for free. This is a mapwide buff to champions while Janna is alive.

If we were to look at the slowest champions in the game, such as Anivia, who has 325 base movement speed. With the system that Riot uses, this will round up Anivias movement speed to 335 (from 334.75). This would make her faster than 28 other champions, which would be critical in invading the enemy jungle, and escaping ganks, as you're able to outrun the opposing team.

Tailwind is also the likely cause of her win ratio, which is currently at 54.93% (courtesy of Elobuff). This statistic is from normals and ranked, in Summoner's Rift, and makes her the highest win rate champion for general game play at the moment.

 

Shurelya's Reverie

+250 health.
+10 HP/5
+10 MP/5
+10% Cooldown reduction.
UNIQUE Active : Grants nearby allies +40% movement speed for 3 seconds (60 second cooldown).

Reverie has a build path from a common support item, Philosopher's stone, and as such is easily accessible for champions like Blitzcrank. It still retains usefulness for champions like Zyra, and Leona, but is not a very common build path due to the way that they lane. This item alone can give you pressure when your ahead, but can also allow you to disengage if you happen to be behind. A Blitzcrank with this item may be able to catch the enemy team out of position, or at least burn their summoner spells with just the threat of his grabs (Rocket Grab).

On occassion, you will see a team pull out two Reveries, though in season three this has not been the case as much as it was in season two. A team with two Reveries will be able to ensure both an engage, and an escape, and can be useful to rush an entire team to an objective that the other team is trying to take, and thus contest it. 

Reverie is also a useful choice in teams that do not have any innate crowd control (CC) aswell. A team without a Reverie will need to pull out personal cooldowns, or provide a big incentive for the other team not to engage, such as Nidalee spears onto essential targets, or other, similiar, scenarios.

 

 

Blade of the Ruined King (BotRK or Blade)

+25 Attack Damage
+40% Attack Speed
+15% Life Steal
UNIQUE Passive : Basic attacks deal 5% of the target's current health in bonus physical damage (max 60 vs. monsters and minions) on hit.

UNIQUE Active : Deals 15% of target champion's maximum health (min. 100) as physical damage, heals for the same amount, and steals 30% of the target's movement speed for 3 seconds (90 second cooldown).

Blade came with season three as one of the new items, mainly for Marksmen and certain Top/Mid/Jungle champions, such as Zed. I'm going to focus on the Marksman, as the playstyle with it can be different depending on which bruiser/assassin/damage dealer you are playing.

With Marksmen, you will mostly be using this item's active as a way to help kite opponents such as Renekton, Riven, Shen, and so forth. All Marksman champions will be able to benefit greatly from it, but if we were to pick out Vayne, who arguably has the greatest success on it due to her Tumble ability to reposition, and her Condemn to knock threats away, then we can see how great of an affect it has.

When she is chasing down an opponent, Vayne will gain 30 movement speed through her passive, Night Hunter (This has a 2000 range). This will put her movement at 360 base. Combined with the active from Blade, which will grant her near 500 movement speed when a match gets to the mid/lategame, there is no escaping this Night Hunter. In short, the active provides a player with almost another summoner, in that it can enhance almost all situations, and increases the survivability of a champion, through being so hard to pin down and damage. It's useful on practically every Marksman for the same reasons as it is for Vayne, whether behind, or ahead.

 

This was just a look at the ways that some of the movement abilities/items can be used. In most cases, the team that wins a teamfight will be the one that has the better position, which can be largely due to being the fastest into position, which is where the ability to reposition, and how fast you are, come into play. It is not the most important stat in League, but often it can be the reason a team fight is won or loss.